Blog

What current trends are we seeing in therapeutic presentations among men? Graham Allen is a psychodynamic psychotherapist with a sideline in league cricket and fitness instructing, who takes a particular interest in men’s mental health. To mark International Men’s Day, he reflects on four developments he has observed in his consulting room, from changes in the world of work to the impact of #Metoo.

Psychotherapist Juliet Grayson works at the root of sexual offending. Her client base includes those people who are at risk of committing a sexual crime, as well as those who have already done so. She is passionate about encouraging more therapists to work with this client group, in order to ‘Stop the First Offence’ rather than wait until a crime has been committed. In the second of five blogs about her work, she discusses the use of the internet in offending.

What can an existential lens bring to our understanding of alcohol addiction? To mark the start of Alcohol Awareness Week, Dr Ryan Kemp, author of Transcending Addiction, explains how our relationship with our emotions, our personal narratives and our bodies can become distorted through alcohol. What clients who misuse alcohol are caught up in, he suggests, is a profound struggle between authenticity and alienation.

Psychotherapist Juliet Grayson works at the root of sexual offending. Her client base includes those people who are at risk of committing a sexual crime, as well as those who have already done so. She is passionate about encouraging more therapists to work with this client group, in order to ‘Stop the First Offence’ rather than wait until a crime has been committed. In the first of five blogs about her work, she discusses paedophilia and paedosexuality.

Can countertransference usefully be understood as a form of nervous system stress? And how might the Internal Family System model help therapists to apprehend and work with such experiences? To mark National Stress Awareness Day, Tracy Jarvis Director of PESI UK and UKCP registered psychotherapist, suggests a fascinating new way to conceptualise stress in the consulting room, and offers some tips for tracking, reading and regulating our stress responses

NHS treatments for medically unexplained symptoms tend to focus on either the physical or the psychological aspect. This has led Professor Helen Payne, one of the leaders in embodied psychotherapy, to devise the BodyMind Approach, which uses creative expression to help people listen to their body’s signals and self-manage symptoms. In the last of four blogs, she explores the interrelatedness of chronic pain and depression, and reveals how conceiving of her symptom as a dam in a river helped one woman manage her symptom.

Helping our clients to cultivate high levels of self-compassion can assist them in transforming their relationship with themselves. Dr Chris Irons, a clinical psychologist and specialist in Compassion Focused Therapy, introduces an approach that is increasingly helping clients with a wide range of psychological difficulties, and explains why learning to practice self-compassion involves real strength and courage.

NHS treatments for medically unexplained symptoms tend to focus on either the physical or the psychological aspect. This has led Professor Helen Payne, one of the leaders in embodied psychotherapy, to devise the BodyMind Approach, which uses creative expression to help people listen to their body’s signals and self-manage symptoms. In the third of four blogs, she explores the complex relationship between mind and body.

The RECON protocol is a way of working with traumatic memories that fits with any modality, and helps clients access their resilience to move beyond pain. Ahead of a two-day Psychotherapy Excellence workshop in November, leading trauma specialist Courtney Armstrong takes us through this five-step process.

NHS treatments for medically unexplained symptoms tend to focus on either the physical or the psychological aspect. This has led Professor Helen Payne, one of the leaders in embodied psychotherapy, to devise the BodyMind Approach, which uses creative expression to help people listen to their body’s signals and self-manage symptoms. In the second of four blogs, she explains how unconscious physiological habits can become stuck in the sensory-motor system.